


as you are he as you are me

by susiecarter



Category: DC Extended Universe, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Bodyswap, Extra Treat, First Time, M/M, Magical Accidents, Size Kink, True Love's Kiss, Trust Issues, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 01:39:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17695169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: "What the hell, man?" somebody says, and GQ turns around and looks.There's someone off to one side of him. Another SEAL, looks like, and the only guy who was anywhere near as close to that blast as GQ. Benitez rushed forward to help him out, though, after the grenade went off; and the guy's freaking out on her, twisting out of her grip and baring his teeth, shoulders bunched, clutching his gun at an awkward angle like he's planning to use it for a club instead of shooting it."Hey," GQ says, starting toward them, and he's distracted at first by the wide-eyed stare Benitez gives him, the way her gun comes up. It takes him a second to meet the guy's eyes, a second to realize that it's—that they're his.That's him over there. That'shim.





	as you are he as you are me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/gifts).



> So you prompted for bodyswap, and you said porn was okay for this pairing, and I spent way too long googling stuff about crocodiles in incognito windows and then kind of fudged the anatomy anyway. NO REGRETS. ... I HOPE /runs away
> 
> Title from the lyrics of I Am the Walrus, because you'd think I'd have learned not to give things stupid "working" titles I think are funny, given that I never actually manage to replace them, but I haven't. :P

 

 

Honestly? GQ's not really sure how it happens.

It takes him a minute to even figure out that it _did_ happen. He's trying to yank his gun away from the swamp-golem-thing that's risen up and put itself together out of the murk in front of him. And he does see the grenade somebody threw—probably Watkins or Delacourt, judging by where it came from—sail past him and disappear into all that roiling blue-white light ahead of them.

The funny thing is, none of this was supposed to happen. They're out here for recon, that's all; but they had to cross this creepy-ass mud-pit from hell on the way, and apparently there's something in here that really doesn't like them.

Anyway, the point is, he just figures it's the explosion. The sudden flare, the noise, the feeling of _moving_ , the part where the next thing he knows he's on his back with a swamp-golem-thing over him, dripping mud into his face. It's all par for the course, in GQ's experience.

Par for the course, except for how his gun isn't there anymore—not in his own hands, not in the swamp-thing's, not anywhere. And when he tightens his grip in a desperate effort and _pulls_ , just trying to get some leverage on the thing, he tears it apart instead.

That's not par for shit.

The swamp-thing shrieks, a weird long wail that's incredibly loud for something that doesn't seem to have a mouth anywhere, and comes apart in a spatter of mud all over him. He blinks up through what's left of it at the sky, bewildered—he hadn't been having much luck tugging his gun out of its grip a minute ago, but he could dismember it with a little effort? The hell kind of sense does that make?

And then he reaches up to swipe some of the muck off his face, and that's when he notices.

At first he just thinks it's the gunk, that his hands look so big, that his skin looks so weird. He had gloves, yeah, but he lost the first one like ten minutes ago and fifty yards back when the first swamp-thing came at him, and yanked the second off thirty seconds later because with the mud and all, his bare fingers had been getting a better grip than the gloved ones. And his palms don't usually have this color, this texture. Trick of the light, he thinks, rubbing at his face—except his face is fucked up, too.

He slows his hand, runs it more carefully over his cheek, his nose, his jaw. And jesus, that is—that is _all_ wrong. His cheekbone's too broad, his nose too flat; everything's sort of hard and oddly bumpy. What the fuck did that explosion even do to him?

He makes himself suck in a breath, blinks and swallows and tells himself whatever it is, he's not hurt and he's not dead, so it could be worse. And it's as he's levering himself up, struggling to his feet and blinking again, that it occurs to him belatedly that he—he can still see, while he's doing it. The blinking, it's—his eyes are doing _something_ , but whatever's covering them, it's not the opaque backs of his eyelids the way it should be—

"What the hell, man?" somebody says, and GQ turns around and looks.

There's someone off to one side of him. Another SEAL, looks like, and the only guy who was anywhere near as close to that blast as GQ. Benitez rushed forward to help him out, though, after the grenade went off; and the guy's freaking out on her, twisting out of her grip and baring his teeth, shoulders bunched, clutching his gun at an awkward angle like he's planning to use it for a club instead of shooting it.

"Hey," GQ says, starting toward them, and he's distracted at first by the wide-eyed stare Benitez gives him, the way her gun comes up. It takes him a second to meet the guy's eyes, a second to realize that it's—that they're his.

That's him over there. That's _him_. Him, except he's not driving; there's someone else in there, and he's—wait. His voice. When he spoke, it was—he sounded like—

He looks down at himself. Except, of course, it's not himself he's looking at. Because this body, this big broad scaly chest, these double-lidded eyes, this face, they aren't his own.

They're Killer Croc's.

"Well, fuck," he says, in Croc's low growling voice, the points of Croc's teeth catching at the tip of his tongue; and his own body looks back at him, face still twisted up in a silent snarl. Because that's—that must be Croc, and GQ doesn't doubt for a second that he's freaking the fuck out in there.

"Back off," Benitez says, even but kind of clipped. Her gun's still pointed at him, and she doesn't have a grip on the trigger but she's not fucking around; she wouldn't be aiming it at him at all if she weren't prepared to shoot.

And yeah, okay, having Croc rush you unexpectedly is enough to put anybody on edge, but jesus. She's never turned a gun on GQ before.

"All right, okay, no problem," GQ says, holding his hands up palm-out—or Croc's hands, really. He curses under his breath a little at the sting in his tongue; he snagged it on Croc's teeth again. Is he really that clumsy? Or—hell, he'd never thought about it, but maybe this is exactly why Croc doesn't talk much.

And Croc _doesn't_ talk much, so even that many words in a row has Benitez looking kind of bewildered.

Luckily, Flag picks that moment to jog up, eyes flicking back and forth across them, taking it in: Benitez's stance, her grip on her gun; what must look to Flag like GQ, standing a step away and kind of behind her, hunched over a little and still baring his teeth, silent; and him, Killer Croc except for how he isn't, with his hands up. "Hey. Clear?"

"Clear," Benitez reports immediately. "No new ones have spawned since the grenade went off."

"That's what I like to hear," Flag says, mild, and Benitez relaxes a little. "All right, head over there and take a look at whatever's left where that light was. Report back in five."

"Yes, sir," Benitez says, and with one last wary sideways glance at GQ, she goes.

"We got a problem here, people?" Flag says once Benitez is a little further away, and GQ half-chokes on a laugh.

"Hell yes, sir," he says, and Flag jerks back, startled, eyes wide—because he must have been expecting GQ's body to be the one to answer; because Killer Croc's never called him _sir_ before and wouldn't start now. "Hell yes, sir," GQ repeats, deliberate, and then explains. But honestly it probably wouldn't have taken much more than him talking, Flag's gaze flicking back and forth betweeen Croc's body over here running its mouth and GQ's over there half-crouched in the mud, silent and staring sullenly, for Flag to buy it.

After GQ's done, Flag looks at him for a second. "Well, fuck," he says.

 

 

Flag calls in evac.

GQ doesn't know what reason he gives for it; they're not exactly injured or anything. But whatever he comes up with, it works. Besides, Watkins actually is bleeding a lot more than he should, and Mayer's arm is broken—no reason to drag them along just to finish up what was supposed to be simple recon.

When the chopper arrives, they climb in. Watkins needs to be lifted up to make it inside, and, well, GQ's kind of got super-strength right now, so he does it. Watkins tenses up when GQ touches him, Killer Croc's hands on him, and for a second GQ thinks maybe Flag didn't brief him; except once they're in, Watkins settled in place with a medic leaning over him, he swallows and says, "Thanks, man," and then, real quick and a little awkward, "Sorry."

So he did know it was GQ. He just—he just couldn't help it, seeing Croc instead.

And it seems like it works the other way around, too. When Croc climbs in, GQ's body, nobody gives him a second glance. The guy at the door of the chopper even nods at him, easy, unthinking, before closing up behind him and signaling the pilot for liftoff.

GQ would've thought Croc might like it—might take advantage of the chance to hang around people without them looking at him funny. But he crouches there for a second with his teeth bared again, his jaw all tight; and then he crosses the chopper and tucks himself into place beside GQ, so close they're almost touching.

Weird. Maybe he just doesn't realize what's up, that this is his shot. GQ's used to him, yeah. After Midway, after seeing him swim, the way he'd helped out—the way he'd dragged GQ's dumb ass out of there instead of leaving him to fry—well. GQ remembers being scared of him, remembers what it was like, but he doesn't _feel_ it anymore. It's hard to get worked up about how Croc could tear him to pieces, when Croc went to all that effort to save his bacon instead. These days when GQ looks at Croc too long, it's not because Croc freaks him out. It's because he forgot not to, because he's absently staring at the flowing patterns Croc's scales make, the sheen of them, the color; it's because he's busy wondering what they'd feel like under his hands, whether Croc would let him find out if he asked—

Anyway. The point is, everybody else who'd gone down there with the two of them had died. Half Flag's squad had died, in Midway. The ones who'd been there hadn't seen Croc in the water, and GQ telling them couldn't make it real for them, no matter how many times he did it; and the ones who hadn't been there couldn't even begin to get it.

So GQ had figured Croc would jump on it, having them finally relaxed around him for no better reason than that their lizard brains weren't clocking him as a threat anymore. But—

But, hell, he's not complaining. It's kind of nice to think that even now, even when Croc might actually have some sort of a choice in it, he's still choosing GQ.

 

 

When they land at HQ, they don't get to shower or change clothes. Not that GQ's wearing any right now, but still. They don't even get debriefed.

They're hustled off to a holding cell instead, shut up in there and left waiting. Which is annoying, but—not injured, not dead, GQ reminds himself. And he doesn't feel much urge to pace, either.

Maybe because it's just so strange, being in Croc's body like this. He feels like he's been moving since it happened, like there's always been something to do or pay attention to that isn't himself or how he feels, what Croc's body is like. But now it's just him and Croc in a room together, waiting.

He's so much bigger than he's used to, taller, broader. He watches himself clench Croc's big strong hands into fists, and it's weird as shit—feeling himself move but not seeing it, none of himself his own.

And pacing would just make it worse. He wouldn't be able to ignore it then.

He sits still instead. Croc's not moving either; he's taken GQ's body over into a corner, crouched down with his back to a wall, jaw tight, staring at the floor.

Must be weird for him, too, GQ thinks. Being—what? Small, probably. Small, weak, breakable. Suddenly all kinds of things could kill him, and what could he do about it? He must hate that. He's got to be used to being able to fuck shit up if he wants, and now if he punched a wall it would be his hand—GQ's hand—that broke.

"Don't punch anything," GQ says.

Croc's gaze comes up off the floor, and for a second GQ can't even see him in there. It's just some blue-eyed guy, a stranger, a face GQ's always been behind suddenly in front of him instead.

But then an eyebrow moves, just a little, and there's a sort of sour flatness coloring that stare, and it's Croc after all, giving GQ that look he sometimes does, saying, _Man, I'm stupid but I ain't that stupid_ without ever opening his mouth.

GQ laughs—and of course it comes out weird, low and coughed from deep in Croc's mineshaft of a throat, but that's okay. Everything's okay. They've got each other and nobody's going anywhere, and they're going to figure this shit out and get it fixed.

They both look up at the same time when the door opens, beep of the keypad outside and then a clang of metal before it swings in to reveal Flag.

"Any more mud monsters, boss?" GQ asks.

"Nah, we handled it," Flag says, stepping in. He sounds fine; but then he reaches up to rub a little at the back of his neck, looking from GQ to Croc and back again, mouth flat. "So it's still you in there, huh?"

"Yeah," GQ agrees.

Croc doesn't say anything.

"Well, so the thing is," Flag says, "we got to lock him down. You understand that, right?"

GQ blinks—with both sets of eyelids—and looks at Croc. He hadn't really thought about it, but yeah, Croc should've been headed back to Belle Reve already. Except the person who's supposed to be in prison and the body that matches all the paperwork they've got aren't the same anymore. And of course they wouldn't let Croc walk out of here in GQ's body. Waller wouldn't take the risk that he might run for it.

Croc probably wasn't expecting anything else. But GQ finds himself wishing for a split second that he'd thought to try to pretend or something, that he hadn't told Flag right away—that he could have gone to Belle Reve for a day, if it meant Croc would have had a chance to get _out_ for a while.

"—not fair to you," Flag's saying, "but I don't know whether we're going to be able to work something out. Waller's Waller."

"What?" GQ says belatedly. "I mean, uh, no, sir. No, sir, it's fine."

Flag narrows his eyes. "You sure?"

"Sure I'm sure," GQ says, and then tilts his chin at Croc, still lurking down there in his corner. "What are you doing with him?"

"Security suite ought to be okay overnight," Flag says. "They want to do some tests and shit first, take readings."

"Works for me."

And he's kind of expecting Flag to tell him he's being weird, to insist he doesn't have to stay here. But instead Flag keeps looking at him for a long minute, and then Flag's mouth kind of slants sideways. "Yeah," he murmurs. "I thought you might say that."

Embarrassment doesn't feel quite the same in this body. Croc's cheeks don't flush, his ears don't get hot. But GQ recognizes the lurch in his gut for what it is anyway. "You know, he's the one you ought to be worried about," he says, mulish and resentful, feeling caught out for no reason he can name. "He's the tasty snack who's going to be locked in there with a mutant crocodile all night."

Flag looks at him, and then at Croc. "Yeah, I can see him shaking in his boots from here."

GQ glances over. And Croc's staring right back at him, watching, and GQ can't help thinking it shouldn't be so hard to read his own face.

 

 

They do run tests.

They run tests, they take samples, they put GQ and Croc through like fifteen different kinds of scans. Frankly, it's a fucking relief to finally get marched down to the security suite and have the steel door cranked shut behind them, because goddamn.

GQ takes a minute just to have a look around—to let the tension run out of his shoulders, to breathe in slow on his own time instead of when one of the lab coats tells him to. Irritating as hell, the way everybody jumped every time he moved, the way they looked at him; by the end, he'd been showing teeth just for the satisfaction of making them quail a little. He doesn't know how Croc puts up with it.

But the suite's okay. Something about the beds, the way they're not quite lined up against the walls, makes GQ think they got moved in here today. And maybe "security suite" is more of a euphemism than a label.

They don't look like they'll break when GQ sits on them, though. And the "suite" part is accurate enough, because there's a bathroom, too, and a row of showers lined up along one wall. Probably for decontamination or something, but it'll do.

By the time GQ comes back out into the main room, Croc's looking more relaxed, too—he's not holding GQ's shoulders up around his ears anymore, and the muscles in GQ's jaw aren't knotted up like they were earlier in Medical. He's sitting down on the edge of one of the beds, with one of GQ's hands spread out across the sheets; just sort of feeling them, as far as GQ can tell.

"You okay, man?"

Croc looks up, thinks about it for a second, and then shrugs a shoulder.

"You were really dying to get out of there, huh?"

"Too many people," Croc bites out.

It's weird as fuck, hearing him say it—knowing it's him, knowing how it would sound coming out of Croc's own mouth, and hearing GQ's, like, tiny fucking Muppet voice instead. By comparison, anyway; obviously GQ sounds normal when it's _him_ talking, but Croc? Totally whack. GQ has to bite down on a laugh, and is reminded all over again how goddamn sharp Croc's teeth are. Ow.

He'd been busy getting pissed off on his own account. But he can't remember anybody giving Croc shit, in Medical. He thinks back to the stuff he'd been turning over on the chopper: how Croc hadn't seemed to realize what having GQ's face meant, or maybe didn't care.

"Yeah," he says aloud, "but they weren't being weird or anything, right? I mean, they treated you like—well, me." He stops. Somehow that came off shittier than he meant it to. "I don't know, I thought it might be easier for you to be around people, now that they'd let you," but, man, that doesn't really sound any better.

Croc's giving him a narrow-eyed kind of look that says it didn't sound great to him either. "Fuck that," he says, flat. "Like they forgot it's _me_ in here just because I'm pretty now? Like I couldn't still fuck their shit up. Like I ought to thank 'em." He hisses out a harsh pissed-off breath. "Fuck that."

GQ blinks.

"What?" Croc snaps, shifting his weight irritably, hunching GQ's shoulders partway up again.

"Pretty," GQ repeats. It's—weird, saying it; hearing it in Croc's voice, looking at himself. "You know that's my face you're talking about, right?"

Croc goes still, over there on the edge of the bed. And then he looks at GQ, and tilts his head. "Prettier now," he says.

GQ grins at him, snorts helplessly, because yeah, sure. Of course he is. He's got scales now, he's enormous and unbreakable and he could bite somebody's arm off. He's the most Croc's type he's ever been in his life, probably, right this instant.

Except after he's done laughing, Croc's still watching him, and his face—GQ's face—has gone all unreadable.

"What?"

"Don't bug you?"

"What—this?" GQ says, gesturing at himself. "I mean, I won't lie, it's been weird as fuck. But I can think of worse people to be." He clears his throat, and hooks a thumb over his shoulder at the bathroom. "I'm going to shower—get the rest of this goddamn mud off."

"Sure," Croc says, and GQ makes a break for it before he can think too hard about why it should be a break—what it is he suddenly wants so bad to hide from.

 

 

The thing is, he's mostly been trying not to think about it too much.

He _didn't_ lie, okay. He didn't. He's just—it's just he's kind of been ignoring it, insofar as that's possible when you switched bodies with a guy who's basically a different species.

That's what he does. That's his job. He takes whatever shit comes at him and he powers through it, keeps going until he reaches the objective, no matter what it is. He'd alerted his CO, he'd helped evac Watkins, he'd obeyed orders and done what he was told and sat there while the lab coats stuck needles in him. But now—

Now he's finished, there's nothing left to do. Nothing left to do except get smacked in the face with every way this really seriously is _not_ his body.

For one thing, he wants the shower so goddamn bad he can hardly stand it. His skin, his scales—scutes? Fuck, like GQ even knows—are itching like wild, and the thought of clean water streaming over him is irresistibly good. Even the tiniest little things are different, like this: the way things look, the way they taste; his own weight, the way he moves. He keeps running his tongue over the roof of his mouth, can't stop himself—because his tongue's different, the shape of his mouth's different, and he can't fucking get over it. He couldn't have sworn he had any idea how it was shaped, before. But Croc's is higher in the back, weird arch to it, broader, and it's disorienting as hell.

His whole sense of himself, the space he takes up, is totally off. He's just so _big_ now, and every single part of him is a different shape than usual. Medical had a million odors so sharp and chemical that he's pretty sure he went nose-deaf for a little while. But once they came in here? He could smell Flag. He could smell _himself_ , his own soft defenseless little body, a strange hot red-meat mammal scent that shouldn't have made him hungry but it totally did. And yeah, he wanted to shower the last of the muck off like nobody's business. But he can admit, if only to himself, that he also wanted the fuck out of that room, standing there talking like Croc didn't smell like lunch to him.

Fuck, that was so creepy.

He shakes his head at himself and rubs a hand over his face—Croc's face, and every scaly ridge under his palm just reminds him of that harder.

And shit, he really didn't think this through. He wanted to be alone for a bit, sure. But if he's trying to get his mind off this whole thing where he's stuck in a body that's not his, _taking a shower_ maybe wasn't the best idea.

No clothes to take off. Croc wears sweats sometimes, hoodies, jackets, but they'd known this morning they'd be wading through a lot of mud, even if they hadn't known it was going to come alive and attack them with magical traps. He hadn't bothered.

GQ swallows and flips the water on, and then, well.

Then there's nothing for it but to touch Croc's wet naked body all over. Jesus.

He squeezes his eyes shut, but it doesn't really help. It's still obviously Croc's chest under his hands, water sluicing over the rippling pattern of scales, and he can picture that pretty goddamn well even without having it right in front of him, number of times he's seen Croc in the water or coming up out of it.

Admittedly, the guilty voyeuristic tingle lighting up his nerves is new. Just because normally when he's sneaking a look, there's a chance Croc could catch him at it. It feels fair. This, though? Croc's out there in the other room, and GQ's shut up in here with his body. He could be doing _anything_ to it, and Croc wouldn't know, wouldn't have the first clue.

But it's—it doesn't have to be weird, GQ tells himself firmly. He's just cleaning himself off. Soaping up, rinsing, letting the last stray dried-on bits of dark mud run off him and swirl down the drain. There's nothing wrong with that.

It's just that there's not a whole lot else to think about in here except this body; how it moves, how it works, how it feels. And the thing is—

The thing is, Croc's _different_.

Honestly, GQ's pretty goddamn impressed with himself for making it through all of that, evac and Medical, waiting around for Flag, without letting himself think too hard about Croc's junk. Because it's definitely there, he can—he can tell he's still got a dick, it's just folded up _inside_ him somehow, tucked away. It's not that he's actually planning to get off with it or anything; he just wants to know how the fuck it even _works_.

He turns his face up into the spray, like if he's not watching himself do it then it won't count, and tentatively slides one of Croc's big broad hands down to feel around his belly.

The scales part to make kind of a slit there—GQ knew that part already. Vertical, starting so low it's almost between his thighs, extending up from there. Practically in the same place as a regular dick, pretty much, it's just the actual dick is—is _in_ there.

He works up to it, a bit at a time, trying to get up the nerve to actually do it. He gets distracted for a minute just running a fingertip along the edges, because the scales are kind of different, smaller or smoother or something, rippling; there's sort of a folding thing going on, he realizes, like maybe the sides of the slit interlock just a bit to keep stuff out of there. Which, fair enough—not like Croc has hair to do that for him.

Except it's parted most of the way, come open. Maybe because he's touching it so much, he thinks, and the moment he thinks that is the moment he maybe accidentally-on-purpose lets one finger slip inside.

At first it seems like it might be even more complicated than he realized. Everything he's touching just feels sort of warm and wet and fleshy. But the dick in there is his dick now, so he can tell there's a pressure against it that wasn't there before. He's got to be close. He pushes his finger in just a little further, and there it is after all. Smooth, solid—hard already? He slides his fingertip along it, fascinated, and fuck, that feels weird. Arousal isn't—isn't as _hot_ in this body as GQ's used to; there's no rush of blood, and Croc's dick doesn't seem to get any thicker or heavier.

But that low sweet zing of sensation is super fucking good anyway, and GQ lets his eyes drop shut and pants a little into the shower spray, trying to get a grip.

Because he still doesn't know how to get this weird-ass crocodile dick _out_. Croc jerks off, right? Probably. Does he have to do it by, like, fingering himself like this? And goddamn, there's a thought GQ really didn't need, but the point is that there's got to be something GQ's missing.

He has no idea what, though, and it's not like it's a hardship to settle for rubbing his fingertips along the length of it again—oh, jesus, fuck, fuck, that feels fucking fantastic. He bites down on a noise, sucking a sharp breath in through his nose, and it probably is kind of fucked up that he gets a little extra jolt out of realizing for himself exactly how big Croc is; which, for all he knows this is thoroughly average for mutant crocodile dudes, but it's pretty goddamn enormous as far as GQ's baseline is concerned. He's going to spoil himself for sex with actual humans forever with this shit.

He laughs a little, breathless, arm against the wall. Like he wasn't already spoiled for it. He's hung up on Croc so bad it's stupid. Might as well lean into it, at this point, and take what he can get.

Croc's dick has a head, and GQ thumbs along the edge of it and yeah, okay, fuck, that works on crocodiles, too—he swears and tenses up, hips jerking, blindly trying to jam as many fingers in there as he can get, and that's when it moves.

Just a little, and he's so surprised he freezes, drawing his hand partway back out with a soft wet sound that's almost inaudible beneath the noise of the shower. And then, carefully, he does it again: tenses up Croc's whole belly, slow, trying to work out exactly what it was that made it—

There's muscles. There's _muscles_ , somehow. Jesus Christ. He blinks water out of his eyes, tilts his head down and watches and tries it again, and this time he gets almost half of Croc's dick out, pressing it forward from the inside so the lips of the slit have to part around the slick pale width of it—jesus, that's fucking obscene. He hisses and bites his mouth, curls his hands into fists against the shower wall. Fuck.

Convenient, too, must be. That Croc can be hard as nails, but if he doesn't decide he wants his dick out, then it isn't—man. That is—that is so handy, compared to GQ's dick just getting hard and then he's stuck with it. High school would have gone a lot smoother if he could have kept his hard-ons to himself, for one thing.

"You evolved-ass motherfucker," GQ murmurs, shaking his head.

And that's his lone half-assed excuse gone, he realizes reluctantly. He wanted to keep going till he figured out how it worked; but actually jacking off Croc's body is probably a couple steps further than he ought to take this. If they're stuck like this for a few weeks, maybe he'll revisit the ethics of rubbing one out in another dude's body without asking. But a day?

"Get a grip, you horny bastard," he tells himself, and relaxes—kind of like coming down after a sit-up, or pulling back after a thrust, and jesus, don't go there, that's not helping. He flattens his palms against the shower wall and concentrates, and when he glances down again to check, success: he managed to put Croc's dick away after all.

Now he just has to finish showering, get the hell out of here, and not be a huge weirdo about looking Croc—himself—in the eye, and maybe this won't be a complete disaster.

 

 

Somebody brought them a couple towels, probably at the same time the beds got moved in here; GQ's pretty sure he recognizes that industrial shade of beige from the team equipment rooms.

He takes his time drying off, rubbing Croc's scales clean and breathing in damp air that only smells a little bit like sex, not thinking about Croc's dick.

Much.

And then he steps out into the main room, thinking a little too late that maybe he should try to move quietly; maybe Croc's already asleep or something. GQ's body probably gets more tired than he's used to, after all.

But when GQ glances over at the bed Croc was sitting on before—well.

Croc's on it, yeah. He's even mostly lying down. But he's definitely not asleep.

He's got GQ's elbows propping himself up, GQ's knees drawn up a little and spread wide, and GQ's pants very definitely unfastened, tugged down just far enough that they've both got a pretty goddamn excellent view of GQ's half-hard dick.

GQ blinks, and swallows hard.

Funny, he thinks dimly, that he was in there feeling Croc up and telling himself he was a weirdo for it, and the whole time Croc was out here doing the exact same thing.

"Uh," he hears himself say.

Croc looks up, and for a second GQ gets that same weird feeling he had before: looking at himself like he's got no idea who's back there, unfamiliar eyes, a face he's never seen without himself behind it.

But then Croc tilts his head, funny little move he likes to make when he's waiting to see what GQ's going to do next, and yeah, okay, it's him in there after all.

He watches GQ for a second, totally unperturbed, and then looks back down at GQ's dick. And it's harder now than it was when GQ first walked in—a lot harder. Croc had just about managed to work up a semi, but GQ can see how it's darkening, the head starting to slick up a little the way it does when he's getting seriously hot for it. Jesus, this is so fucking weird—

"Huh," Croc says.

"What?"

Croc shrugs. "Took a while. Thought maybe your dick was broken."

" _Broken_?" GQ says, a little outraged. "Hey, man, I'll have you know my dick is in exceptional fucking working order, okay. Just because we don't all have super-sized mutant hard-ons—"

He stops; it's actually more obvious on his own face than it is on Croc's, the way the crinkles show around the corners of the eyes when Croc thinks something is downright goddamn hilarious.

"Oh, fuck you," GQ says unthinkingly, and then really wishes he hadn't.

It's just—the way Croc looks, lying there like that. The way _GQ_ looks, technically, except GQ's pretty sure his body's never been that lazily confident when he's in it, and he's damn sure never looked at himself with eyes that heavy-lidded, with his shirt rucked up, with a slow red flush climbing his throat.

GQ's dick is really leaking now. Croc glances at it curiously, leans back a little harder on one elbow so he can reach with the other hand and rub GQ's thumb over the tip of it—and fuck, GQ can _see_ him feel it, the shudder that sends through him, the way his head drops back as he lets out a tense little hiss of breath.

"Huh," Croc says again, mostly to himself. And then he drags GQ's head unsteadily back up, and cuts a heavy-lidded sideways glance at GQ that knocks all the air out of the room, it feels like. "You want to?"

"What?"

"Fuck," Croc says, unhesitating, impatient. "You want to?"

"You, uh. _You_ want to?"

And that makes Croc roll his eyes. "Can't fuck myself," he points out flatly.

"I mean, this one particular time, you actually sort of can," GQ says, and Croc huffs the way he does when he wants GQ to think he's annoyed but he's totally not.

And then he looks away, absently running GQ's fingertips along GQ's dick. "Don't know what it's like, that's all," he says, low.

Which, yeah, okay, that's fair enough. GQ was screwing around in the shower not ten minutes ago trying to figure out how this shit works for Croc—and Croc doesn't want to be human, never has, but that doesn't mean he's never wondered what it's like. Here's his chance to give it a whirl, take GQ's body for a test drive. No harm, no foul.

Because he doesn't know GQ's got a thing for him.

But what difference does that have to make? None, GQ decides. It's not like he's going to make it weird—not any weirder than it already is, given that they're only in this situation in the first place because an explosion in a demon swamp made them swap bodies. Getting to enjoy themselves with a little friendly experimental banging, as long as they're stuck like this, might even qualify as a pretty healthy way to handle it, relatively speaking.

"Don't have to," Croc says.

GQ looks up.

Croc's watching him, and he's holding GQ's body exactly the same as he was a minute ago, shoulders relaxed, leaning on that elbow, thighs spread with casual ease. GQ's cock is still just as hard, too. But there's something in his eyes anyway that GQ doesn't like. Something wary, uncertain.

"What," GQ says, "you calling me chicken?" And of course it comes out in Croc's deep growl, but he's pretty sure he got his point across.

Croc raises an eyebrow, and tips his chin up. "The fuck're you waiting for, then?" he says.

GQ grins at him, and for once it feels like it's as wide as it ought to be, on Croc's broad face. "Just admiring the view," he says.

It only takes about three strides of Croc's big legs to cross the rest of the space between GQ and the bed. And then it's—it's like something out of a totally disoriented fantasy. All the right visuals, Croc's huge scaly hands on GQ's thighs, Croc catching GQ's shirt in one fist and just tearing; but he's on the wrong side of it all.

Figures, he can't help thinking, wry and a little wistful. Figures, that to make any of this happen he'd have to do it to himself.

But it's fine. It's cool. Croc's into it, at least judging by the color settling high in GQ's cheeks, GQ's dick so hard it's starting to curve back toward his belly.

GQ catches the waistband of his pants and tugs down, and Croc hisses at him. "Just trying to get them off you, man," he says, and grabs for a thigh impatiently—and it's a jolt to realize he can just grip it, move it where he wants it, and Croc can't stop him. Fuck.

He swallows hard, and then gets a grip—literally and metaphorically—and tugs until the uniform pants, the briefs, everything, are down, off, and he can toss them on the floor.

Croc tips his head back and rolls it a little, letting GQ's thighs drop wide apart again. "Pain in the ass," he mutters.

And right, he's usually wearing sweats at the most. It's a miracle he figured out how to get the fly undone.

"Hey," GQ tells him, "as far as I'm concerned this has been declared a 100% pants-free zone for the next twelve hours," and Croc's mouth—GQ's mouth; fuck, that's confusing, GQ thinks despairingly—kind of slants at the corner.

And then he lets GQ's eyes fall shut, palms GQ's dick, and says, "Now what?"

GQ clears his throat. It's a little bit more of a mental hurdle than he'd thought, to grab his own ass. But shit, he likes how that looks, Croc's big thick gray-green fingers gripping a curve he knows belongs to him, even if he can't feel it.

And Croc's reaction is more than worth it. He doesn't hiss again, doesn't thrash; his breath catches, his head tipping back and his mouth falling open.

GQ thought he smelled good before, thought that hot animal scent was maybe a little too much. But now? Now he can't get enough of it.

He feels a sound trying to rumble its way up into his throat and lets it, and it turns out to be a quiet satisfied growl. And that's just the right word for it: he feels _satisfied_ , deep down, leaning in with Croc under him like this, gripping Croc's hip, his ass; wanting to fuck him, and knowing Croc's about to let him.

Maybe it's Croc's body. His instincts, or something, hardcoded.

But GQ doesn't think so.

He digs Croc's pointy teeth into the side of his cheek, and tries to get his head on straight. No way is he leaving Croc here to go radio Flag or somebody asking for lube. But—

He stops, and thinks about what it was like sliding his fingers in there, how wet it is in that odd fleshy space where Croc's dick tucks itself away. Slippery.

Huh.

He runs a thumb idly over—over his own hole, and man, he's not sure whether it's better or worse that that thought feels kind of dirty instead of just weird. The way Croc clenches his jaw, the way his thighs tense, is even hotter.

And then Croc cracks an eye open, and says, "What? You don't think you can take it?"

GQ hisses. "Jesus—"

"Bet you can," Croc murmurs, hoarse and goading. "Come on. Bet you can. Do it."

God, and that's like ten smoking hot things stacked all on top of each other: thinking about Croc's dick pushing into his ass, thinking that _Croc's_ been thinking about Croc's dick pushing into his ass; thinking about what it'll feel like, about how Croc's the one who gets to feel it first, Croc taking his dick except it's him taking Croc's dick at the exact same time. And fuck, Croc's probably never felt anything like what GQ's body does when somebody's putting it to him—Croc's body's arousal feels slow and creeping to GQ, a rising tide. GQ's is probably going to feel to him like getting set the fuck on fire.

He's still careful. It's his ass, for one thing. And he likes the way impatience looks on Croc, the set of his brow and the grit of his teeth, the grumpy little noises he makes, even if they'd sound better coming out of his throat and not GQ's.

But Croc's dick _is_ slippery. GQ does the thing, tenses up and makes it slide out, and Croc looks at it and then him and licks his lips. "Figured some shit out, huh?" he says.

"What can I say," GQ tells him, "I've got an inquiring mind," and then he works his hand up and down it a couple times, pushes it down and nudges Croc up until he can rub the whole wet length of it between Croc's asscheeks. Croc jerks against him, twists his face sideways into the bedsheets and clenches his fists, totally silent; and fuck, but it's tough to remember to pull back, to start working one of Croc's fingers in there first now that it's all been slicked up some.

He means to go to two next, he really does. But Croc is moving with him so readily, red-faced, throat working, still dead fucking silent, and it feels like fucking torture to think of keeping him waiting.

"Look," GQ says, "I can—"

"Do it," Croc grits out.

He meets GQ's eyes for the first time in about five minutes, and okay, yeah, he means it. Which normally might or might not be convincing, but it _is_ GQ's ass on the line, and he's always liked the burn of rushing it. Is that in his head, though? Or will Croc like it, too?

"Fuck it," he says, half to himself, and he hauls Croc's hips up and presses his thighs apart and goes for it.

It's like porn, in basically the best possible way: getting this angle on the sight of a dick going into himself doesn't exactly happen every day. Getting this angle on the sight of _Croc's_ dick going into himself isn't anything he ever thought he'd get outside of his own head, and he sinks in at least an inch further than he meant to right off the bat, so worked up over it that he can't stop himself. And fuck, the sensation of that close tight heat around him is like six times as intense, with a dick this big and a body temperature this low. Fucking hell.

"Sorry, sorry, jesus," he says breathlessly, but Croc doesn't seem to be complaining any.

Croc's not saying anything at all, in point of fact. Lucky, GQ thinks dimly, that right now Croc's in the body GQ understands the best. As far as GQ can tell, Croc's dick is hard all the time; Croc's covered in scales that are always the same color. How would GQ ever be able to tell for sure what he was into, except a shitload of trial-and-error?

But it's GQ's body GQ's looking at, and GQ can see his own dick leaking everywhere, that deep deep red it's gotten at the head; the flush not just in his face or his neck but his ears, his mouth, the backs of the fists Croc's got clenched in the bedcovers. The way his chest is heaving, the way his thighs are shaking—yeah. Yeah, that's GQ's body having a goddamn whale of a time, and Croc doesn't have to say a word for GQ to know it.

But GQ kind of wants to hear one anyway, just to be sure. Croc tries a couple other things first, digs a heel into GQ's back and rolls his hips in a tight sinuous move that makes GQ think of swimming; but GQ counts backwards in his head from fifty and doesn't budge until Croc makes an irritated noise and says, " _More_."

"Yeah?" GQ says, and tightens his grip on Croc's hips, sinks another half-inch—pulls out almost all the way, which makes Croc grit his teeth and hiss and kick him in the back again, but it's only so he can adjust the angle and fuck in deeper next time. Which he does, and Croc swallows once, twice, fists opening and then closing again, before he manages to relax into it enough that GQ can give him another inch. "Like that?"

" _Yes_ ," Croc says, and all at once he's come up off the bed, gripping GQ's shoulders, the back of his neck. "GQ—"

"Yeah, yes—oh, fuck, I can't believe you're letting me—"

"GQ," Croc says again, lower, so he almost sounds like himself; and then he tugs GQ down far enough to kiss him.

Kiss him, hell. He _bites_ GQ, sinks his teeth straight into GQ's lip like he doesn't know what else to do with it—except of course it's actually Croc's lip, so it barely hurts at all. GQ makes a sound into it, can't help himself, and if he's not careful he's going to bite his own damn tongue off, but he wants more, deeper, as much of Croc as he can get—

He thinks at first maybe he lost his balance. Maybe his eyes are squeezed shut a little too tight, burst of light like fireworks against the backs of his eyelids, and it's goddamn embarrassing to think he's about to tumble right off the bed or something, but he doesn't know how else to explain the sudden swell of dizziness, a rush of air, the weird sharp jerk of _movement_.

Except then it's over, and he hasn't hit the floor at all. He's still kissing Croc, he's just—he's the one underneath now, Croc over him, and he tenses in surprise and oh, jesus, fucking hell, he's himself again.

He's himself again, and he's not fucking Croc anymore; he's _getting fucked_.

"Holy shit," he says drunkenly, breathlessly, into Croc's mouth. Croc's actual mouth, wide scaly lips, and when GQ licks between them giddily he catches the point of a tooth and almost cuts his tongue open. "Holy _shit_ ," because ten seconds ago he was the one trying not to shove his dick too fast into all that amazing clenching heat, and now he's the one getting fucking plowed.

Or he should be, except Croc's not moving anymore.

"Oh, fuck, please, please," GQ says against his mouth, his jaw, scrabbling for a halfway decent grip on those huge shoulders, thighs shaking around Croc's waist. "Please, come on, do it—go for it, man, I'm begging you—"

"GQ," Croc says, real quietly.

" _Please_ ," GQ says, squirming, because he doesn't quite have the leverage to fuck himself on Croc's dick but he'd damn sure like to get it if he can—

And then suddenly Croc's got him, one big hand on his chest to hold him down and the other on his ass, almost all the way to his thigh. Keeping him still, holding him open; and then Croc moves, gives him exactly what he's asking for, and GQ could fucking cry—maybe does, a little bit—for how good it feels. The stretch of it, jesus, he can't even clench down; Croc's dick is right at the limit of what he can take like this, only half prepared for it, and he gasps and thrashes, tries to remember how to breathe. He's going to be carrying this ache around for a week, at least, and it's going to be the best goddamn week of his life.

And he's going to be carrying around a whole different ache for a lot longer than that. But that's okay. He knew that going in, and it's not a price he's not willing to pay, for the sake of at least getting to know what this feels like.

"Yes," he says aloud, " _yes_ , oh, fuck—keep going," and Croc growls a little and holds on tighter, and does exactly that.

It takes less than a dozen strokes for GQ to come all over himself, which he decides dazedly is totally impressive under the circumstances. Croc fucks him with these perfect little thrusts, short and hard, pausing in between like he's letting the want build up, like when he does move it's because he can't stand not to anymore. And he's just so fucking _big_ , smooth solid dick filling GQ up like it was made to, right up to the hot shimmering edge of what he can handle without quite tipping over it, his whole body coming helplessly alight.

He shakes his way along the aftershocks, Croc helpfully fucking him right through them without stopping until GQ finally manages to gasp out, "Okay, okay, hang on— _ah_ ," and then Croc eases out of him—almost as slow as GQ went in to start with, when it was Croc down here instead; like he remembers, and he's trying to do it like GQ showed him.

"Goddamn," GQ says, hand over his eyes, lying there trying to catch his breath.

"Okay?" Croc says.

"Oh, better than okay, man," GQ says dizzily, "we left 'okay' back there somewhere eating our fucking _dust_ ," and then he manages to peel his hand away and fumble for Croc, his chest, his waist, clumsy strokes as steady and soothing as he can get them. "Sorry," he adds belatedly. "You were—that was supposed to be for you, not me. I know it's not really the same, but I could—"

He stops short, blinking. He'd gotten his fingers all the way back down to that slit; Croc's put his dick away again, probably trying to be polite and not make a big deal out of how GQ co-opted his one shot to try out a human orgasm from the inside. But GQ's more than willing to try to make it up to him. Jerk him off, suck him off—let him fuck GQ again, if he wants, as long as GQ can have like ten minutes here to recover.

Except Croc's caught him by the wrist, and he's giving GQ that pale steady stare out of narrowed eyes, teeth showing. "Fuck off," he snarls.

"What?" GQ says, bewildered. "But I—I mean, if you'd let me, I'd—"

Croc's eyes get narrower; but his grip loosens. GQ takes the opportunity to run his fingertips along those little folding edge scales, and man, with Croc's fingers he'd just gotten the bluntest general sensation. His own skin's a lot better with texture, with following the tiny rippling patterns those scales make as they get finer and smoother.

"Let you," Croc repeats slowly.

"Yeah," GQ agrees, absent, busy being fascinated; and then he hears himself and feels his face flush hot. "I mean, uh. If you wanted me to, that's all."

He pauses for a second, trying to figure out a better way to say it without sounding weird or desperate or pathetic. And then he looks at Croc—at the way Croc's looking back at him, wary, uncertain.

Croc looked at him like that earlier, too. _Don't have to_ , he'd said then. _Don't know what it's like, that's all._

And GQ thought he'd meant banging while human. But maybe—

Maybe he just meant fucking. Had he—had he ever, before this? GQ has no idea. The way most people act when they see Croc, though—

GQ swallows. Maybe Croc had thought this was his one shot, yeah: his one shot to get banged, while he looked like GQ instead of like himself. Because knowing you're beautiful is one thing, but it's probably kind of hard to figure out how to get yourself nailed to a mattress when you don't think there's anybody out there who agrees with you.

Jesus.

"Man," he says aloud, "what, you think I just couldn't resist the chance to rail myself? I'm a looker, yeah, but I'm not _that_ much of a narcissist."

He strokes again with his fingers, slower; and Croc's still watching him silently, but his hand's just looped around GQ's wrist now, loose, barely exerting any pressure at all.

"I'd—I'd fuck you anytime. Whether you look like me, or you, or Charlize Theron." He shakes his head, huffing out half a laugh, and under his fingertips Croc's belly relaxes a little, slit loosening enough for GQ to slide a thumb in there.

Croc makes a tiny rumbling noise almost too quiet to hear, and his eyes aren't narrowed anymore but half-lidded, lazy.

GQ hesitates, and then, on a whim, rubs his thumb along the edge of the slit, right where scales give way to that wet fleshy inside; and Croc moves a little against his hand, like he can't quite help it.

"I'm just starting to figure out what does it for you," GQ adds, "and you think I'm going to quit now? Come on, dude."

Croc looks away, and then back at him. "Don't have to," he says, quiet, careful, just like before.

"You see anybody twisting my arm, here?" GQ demands. "I want to. Jesus, you're—I _want_ to."

Croc's still staring at him kind of skeptically, which honestly is a little insulting. But the best defense is a good offense, GQ figures, so he just goes for it: dips one fingertip, two, three, in there alongside his thumb, pressing carefully in until he feels the smooth solid line of Croc's dick, just like he knew he would.

And Croc groans a little, real low in his chest, and shifts his weight over GQ, tongue flickering out. "Yeah?" he says at last.

"Yeah," GQ agrees, and Croc watches him for another moment and then settles in against GQ's spread thighs, close enough for GQ to reach up and hook an arm around his shoulders and kiss him again.

 

 

Predictably enough, Flag's the one who comes to get them in the morning. Probably so Medical can run more tests, GQ thinks, and feels absolutely no regrets at all about giving the whole thing away by looking up and saluting at him.

"Morning, boss," he says, casual.

Flag blinks, and looks back and forth between him and Croc. "So you're—back, I take it," he says after a second.

"Yep," GQ says.

"Well. Lab coats won't like it, but I can't say I'm sorry." He raises an eyebrow. "What happened?"

GQ manages not to freeze. He's got no reason to panic. He got dressed again after the shower they took post-fourth-round, once he'd reluctantly conceded, to Croc's amusement, that he just wasn't going to be able to get it up again; which is to say the t-shirt was a loss, but he's got pants on. They fucked in both beds, so nothing's suspiciously unused. It doesn't even smell funny in here, because there's a ventilator in the bathroom. And if "security suite" is the kind of ARGUS euphemism GQ's pretty sure it is, then there aren't cameras to worry about, either; Waller doesn't generate evidence that could be used against her in court.

Flag just means—what made it stop, that's all.

"Oh," GQ says, "no idea. It just—"

He chokes on nothing all of a sudden. _It just stopped_ , he'd been about to say, except—

Except maybe it didn't, exactly. It was magic, right? A spell, in other words, even if it was just random splashback from throwing a grenade into the middle of some eldritch lightshow. A spell. And then they'd—they'd kissed. And it—maybe it broke the—

Nah. No fucking way.

Right?

"It, uh. It wore off," he manages, clearing his throat.

"It wore off," Flag repeats.

"Yep," GQ says.

He looks at Croc. Croc looks at him.

"Yep," Croc agrees.

Because no fucking way. No fucking way is GQ's weird panting hang-up over Croc enough to qualify as—no way does _Croc_ —just no.

No, GQ tells himself again, firmly. But he can feel heat crawling up into his face, his ears; and when he risks a glance over, Croc's still watching him, curious, intent, and GQ has to bite the inside of his cheek hard to keep down a really stupid smile.

 

 

(So—maybe.)

 

 


End file.
